Apocryphal Carpe Diem
by Midnight Blackened
Summary: [pairing: Female Sole Survivor/MacCready] These are the 'spaces in between' of this FO4 romance as we all know it.
1. Chapter 1

The sun was about to set in Sanctuary Hills, painting the sky with fiery reds and warm oranges. Nora Gibson had been forced to spend the last four days in bed recovering from a too-close-for-comfort mini-nuke blast. If it hadn't been for her friend Nick Valentine's quick synth abilities to respond to the situation, she'd be lying in a shallow grave someplace instead of her bed in her old house at the Hills.

Doctor Cade had come to check on her and after his examination he told her, "you've responded remarkably well to my treatment, Knight. At first I had to assume the worst, but I guess your partner did manage to get you out of the severe damage zone from the blast. I'm pleased to inform you, you're free to resume your duties starting from tomorrow."

Nora's face lit up. She reached out for the doctor's forearm and gave it a light squeeze as she said, "thank you, Knight-Captain."

She saw him divert his eyes away from hers as a rosy color crept up his cheeks.

Scratching the side of his head he told her in a professional tone that gave nothing away. "As a friendly word of advice, Miss Gibson, yes you're fit for duty but don't strain yourself. Take it at your own pace."

He stood up from his chair as if it was suddenly lit on fire and added, "but don't tell the brothers I've told you that. They want you back on your feet and ready for action as soon as possible. That's why they sent me to treat you, personally."

She sighed with a hint of resignation. "I know."

"I've left a new batch of radiation-free rations with your people. You're only..."

She finished the sentence for him, "... to eat from those, yes I know!"

He continued, "yes, until your body flushes the radiation out of your system completely."

He opened the door and turned around to face her before saying, "I'll be seeing you at the Prydwen, Knight." He gave her an informal salute. "Ad Victoriam!"

She only answered with a soft nod as she watched him leave. Her absent stare lingered on the tattered door, looking past it, immersed in her thoughts for a few moments.

"The Brotherhood has the cutest men but they're all such sticklers. Just my luck..."

The sound of the Vertibird engines starting in the distance brought her back to Earth. Her attention returned to the journal she'd left resting on her lap. She opened it up and finished writing her latest entry. Nora couldn't believe she was halfway through filling up her third journal, considering how precious little time she had for herself among the myriad of tasks she always had pending and new ones forever piling up as soon as she cleared the old ones.

The two completed journals sat at the foot of her bed, along with other reading material people had gathered for her to read during her convalescent time. She had intended to re-read them to remind herself that she wasn't always an invalid laying in bed all pathetic and helpless.

She shrugged to herself. "Meh, now is as good a time as any," she said the words aloud, which was a new habit she'd picked up since she'd woken up at the vault from her cryogenic sleep, believing she was the only human left on the planet after a global nuclear holocaust. Talking to herself soothed her. Filling the air with a human voice made her feel less lonely, even if that voice was only her own.

She laughed at the memory. "God, I was such a drama queen back then, wasn't I?" she said as she reached for her second journal. With all her out loud talking, she was trying to divert herself from the fact that she was picking that one, and not the first one, attempting to fool herself that the choice she was making was casually random.

She opened up the journal, quickly turning the pages. "Yeah, Gibson, you were the last living thing alive except for, well, all the people you soon came across. And the mutants. And the giant cockroaches. And the zombies. Ok, they call them 'feral ghouls' ...whatever!"

She'd never really liked her first name. Back in school, everybody had called her by her surname, and she couldn't say she'd complained. The tradition followed her all the way to law school and beyond - far beyond, like 200 years into the future.

Following the lines with a finger, she stopped at the entry entitled: Goodneighbor. Her attempt at fooling herself hadn't worked. She skipped most of the paragraphs until her eyes found what she was looking for: The Third Rail, which was a bar in a town populated mostly by outcasts, and run by a ruthless, yet charming, ghoul. It was the only bar she'd come across that had in-house live music. Her words in the journal read:

 _I heard loud voices coming from a back room. I'd like to tell myself that I thought someone was in danger and maybe I could lend a hand, but the truth is that I was probably just being nosey. When I reached the room I saw this kinda scrawny, rough-looking guy surrounded by two much bigger guys. He was holding his ground surprisingly well, considering that he was essentially cornered and all by himself. I felt like intervening, but he seemed to have the situation under control. The argument was about some sort of blackmail, or something along those lines._

 _The big guys soon fucked off leaving scrawny guy and me alone in the room. Long story short, he was a gun for hire and looking for a job. I ended up hiring him, and I guess, I'll soon find out if he's as good as he claims he is._

 _But only for-hire, though? I was hoping for something more permanent, because Cait... well, Cait has issues with addiction and as good a friend as she is, her wild mood swings are starting to grate my nerves. Lately, I'm spending more time rescuing her than having her as my back up, and Dogmeat is excellent at finding the baddies but awful at fighting them off. Then there's always Preston but he has his hands full protecting the home base. I just can't keep taking him away from his post at the Hills._

 _God! I really do need a sharp shooter covering my ass. I hope this guy - who isn't much to look at, to be perfectly honest - is 'it.' Not to mention; hiring him took all the caps I had. So, the bastard better be worth it!_

She closed the journal, once again immersed in deep thought. She didn't need to carry on reading to remember all the troubles they'd gotten themselves into shortly after they'd met; the ones assigned to her by Preston, and the ones they'd just had the misfortune to stumble upon. From the first time they'd had to draw their weapons, MacCready had proved his worth to the very last cap she'd paid him - and then some.

She laughed sarcastically. "Ha! Yeah, but it would help if he wasn't so fucking smug about it all time," she said, tossing the journal angrily back to the foot of the bed. Imitating his voice, she mocked, "impressed yet? You're messing with the best! Chalk up another kill for me!"

"Ass!" she declared as she got up from the bed, realizing she was just working herself up about him, all over again. She got dressed, grabbed the last packet of rations from the nearby table, flung a spoon in her shirt breast pocket, and got out of the old house for the first time in three days - or was it four? She wasn't sure since she'd been completely out of it for the first two.

She headed out for the make-shift camp fire she and Preston had set up near the river. She favored that spot over the cooking station in the middle of the settlement on account of it always being so crowded. Preston noticed her preference and was courteous enough to keep it always lit for her to use whenever she needed it.

She placed her ration packet near the fire to warm it up, and while doing so, she heard foot steps closing in behind her. "Good to see you up and about, kiddo." Nick Valentine's friendly voice rang in her ears.

"I hope you're not still mad at Preston for sending us to that semi-suicide mission at the Outpost Zimonja," he said while joining her sitting on the ground by the fire. "Don't be. Look! He's still religiously keeping the fire lit for you."

Gibson left out a soft laugh. Valentine continued, "I've had a word with him, right after I tucked you in your bed when I brought you home unconscious. The man was a mess. He looked like his puppy had been eaten alive by a deathclaw right in front of him. He said he didn't know they were armed with mini-nukes - his intel was that they were just ordinary, run of the mill raiders. He told me a million times: I didn't know, Nick. I didn't know, Nick. As if the more times he said it, time would magically rewind to before you getting hurt. Later, I overheard that he got into a fist fight with his informant over the mishap and..."

She interjected. "Don't worry, Nick. I'm not mad at Preston. Well, I was. A little... I'm not anymore, but..."

The sentence was left hanging. She was finding it hard to arrange her thoughts in a coherent way in front of Nick.

"But you're really mad at someone else, aren't you lassy?" he said to her in a somewhat sly tone.

Gibson snapped her neck and looked at Nick with widened eyes, for a brief moment suspecting he'd been reading her journals behind her back. Some of her entries about MacCready were, well... 'colorful,' to put it elegantly.

He laughed at her reaction. "Yeah, alright! I couldn't call myself a detective if I wasn't any good at putting two and two together, could I?" he continued chuckling.

Gibson lowered her head in slight embarrassment.

"It's not like it is such an unravelable mystery. You exiled his butt to the Red Rocket, for pete's sakes!" He then added as chuckles took over him again, "all by himself."

She narrowed her eyes at Nick disapprovingly.

"Sorry, kid," he tried to regain some of his composure, "it's just that you youngsters are a hoot. So, tell me, would you like to talk about it? Or are you just going to let him sulk for another two weeks or so?"

Gibson looked up at the sky that had now acquired a dark deep purple hue. The twilight effect it caused on the ground made everything look magical, almost idyllic. She pondered on Nick's question. What was she going to do with _him_? And what was there to tell? She didn't know, so she asked exactly that, "what do you wanna know, Nick?"

"For starters, you could tell me what he did to get himself in the dog house. That one I couldn't figure out."

She thought about the question for a few moments, trying to put together an answer in words that didn't make her sound shallow. A minute or so passed by with Nick still waiting patiently in silent expectation. Her goal to sound 'reasonable' seemed unworkable, so she just blurted out the core of the matter. "He flirted with Cait."

She immediately put a hand to her face to hide her rather - all too real this time - embarrassment. When she gathered the strength to look up at Nick again, she found him observing her expectantly.

Feeling pressured by his inquisitive stare she added, "aah... aand he did it right after I helped him dispatch the two gunner heavies that were eager to stick his head on a pike. Ok, not immediately after that..." she took a deep breath and continued, "we got the gunners, right? And it wasn't exactly a piece of cake to take them out, let me tell you. As we were looking for loot and salvage, he... he opened up to me a little bit. He shared a couple of things about himself and his back story. He even returned the caps I've paid him when I hired him and told me how much he appreciated my help..."

Nick finished the sentence for her, "...and then he goes and shows his appreciation by flirting with your friend. Right! Got it, now I have all the pieces of the puzzle."

She rushed to add, "I know it sounds silly, but.."

Nick interjected, "... but nothing, kid. If it matters to you, then it can't be silly."

"Well, but it is! This new reality, this world, this life," she gestured around her as she continued, "whatever you wanna call it, is not a place for silliness. I guess... the truth is that this is not so much about him hitting on Cait..."

"It's that you like him," Nick said offering her a knowing look along with a wink.

"Well, duh! Sherlock!" Nick laughed at her come back. "It's not that either!" she told him. "It's... it's... I don't know **what** it is, but I do know it's something else! It's this feeling of unease. Discomfort?" she wondered, mostly to herself whilst trying to find the right word to convey her thoughts.

Defeated, she gave up on that concept and continued on a different vein, "this is the thing. He's like two different people in one. On the one hand, when we're out in the field, he's this tough guy who takes no shit from anybody, gives lip to anyone doesn't matter how butch they are, takes down super mutants ten times his size as if they were nothing. And all the while joking about it..." she added with an amused expression at the memory of his antics.

"The point is that is easy to forget this other side he has, a side with an almost childlike innocence quality to it ...and that's when I remember how young he is," she said, with a tinge of embarrassment creeping up her yet again.

Gibson then continued with an observation that reassured her a little. "Well, nearly everyone here seems to be so damn young. It's just that this hard life and the radiation, no doubt, make everyone look way older than they actually are. And all of this makes me feel like a relic. An over two hundred years old relic! Which I am. Literally!"

Nick laughed. "You're speaking to the right audience." He tapped his head with a finger as he said; "My memories are from this pre-war police officer, remember him? All I know, I know it through him, and his experiences from another time, another era. Your era," he pointed at her with his hand. "But I know I'm a synth, so my understanding of your situation and how you must be experiencing it only goes so far. So forgive me if I ask... I'm not really following you, kid."

Gibson realized she had been rambling kind of aimlessly, "yeah... some lawyer I am if I can't even present my own case properly, huh? Ok, here it goes..." She took a deep breath.

"Yes, I do like him, I like him a lot in fact, but having these..." she coughed a little, "...thoughts about him, even though I'm not planning to act on them, makes me feel like I'm taking advantage of him. I mean... if I did act on them. God! That's it. I give up! This is impossible to explain," she rolled her eyes in frustration.

"Look, Nick, I do lock those feelings in a box and put them deep, deep in the back of my mind, but I guess, seeing him flirting with Cait just busted the damn box open, didn't it? It made me realize, in no ambiguous way, that a girl of his age, and - as you put it - his era, is what he really needs." She then added in a sad tone, "and... or wants."

"And I'm just this crazy old relic with a crush on a guy that I better leave the hell well alone," she said hanging her head. "The defense rests, your honor."

Nick let out a short soft laugh at her last remark. "Ok, now I get it. And that's all well and good, but it still doesn't explain why you banished him to the Red Rocket," he said with a smirk on his face.

"Yeah, ok, well... that was me being stupid, small, small..." she said frustratedly, mostly at herself, "...small, stupid and petty. So, sue me! I was in no mood to be seeing his bastard face in Sanctuary all the time. Acting like everything was _'ok_ ' and _'normal,_ '" she air-quoted the words while using a mocking tone of voice.

"And quit judging me, Valentine! It's not like I've sent him to Spain. The Red Rocket is just down the road from here."

"Relax, kid. I was just yanking your chain there. But listen, Nora, really. I suspect you might be making a storm in a teacup about this."

She sighed resigned. "Yeah, I guess I overreacted."

Nick answered, "no. That's not how I meant it. There's no way around this one and to know for sure if he reciprocates, you'll just have to talk to him, but, but..." He rushed to add, after noticing her horrified reaction at his suggestion, "but! I'm a detective, that's what I do. And one of the things us detectives are good at is to observe. We pick up on the little things that go unnoticed to most people..."

Gibson interrupted him. "Yeah, thanks for the for the job description, but can you please put me out of my misery already? As if I'm not mortified enough as it is by blabbing all of this to you."

Nicked laughed. "Your secret is safe with me, if that what's bothering you. My point is, that guy..." he said, pointing a thumb in the Red Rocket's direction, "..has it for you," he finished pointing at her. "And that ain't no secret, let me tell ya."

She looked at him with a mixture of surprise and skepticism. "Yanking my chain there again?" she asked him sarcastically with a raised eyebrow.

"You really haven't noticed?" Nick inquired, skeptically. "Every single time..." he made a point of elongating some of the syllables to emphasize his words, " ...you move from one place of the settlement to another, he follows you like a shadow. When you're working at the benches, he always gets close to observe and compliments your work. I bet you think he does that with everyone. Well, he doesn't. And even when he puts his feet up at down time, he has an eye out scanning for raiders, true, but his other eye is on you like white on rice. And I know you don't know that last one because he's careful to look away whenever you glance in his direction, but he doesn't care when others catch him looking at you..."

Gibson interrupted this recitation impatiently. "I think you're pushing the _'please, be my Valentine'_ theme a bit too far there, Nick. You're reading too much into it," she told him, dismissing his theory with a hand gesture and shaking her head.

"Or maybe... you're the one not reading him well enough," he retorted with a wink. "Like I said, you'll have to bite that bullet and ask him if you wanna know for sure. But here's what I think: life out here is no picnic, as I'm sure you've already figured out. People don't come together like they used to back in our time - well, your time. You know what I mean. Folks are too busy surviving, or not getting themselves killed by one Wasteland creature or another. There's no time for luxuries such as romance, candlelit dinners and heart-shaped boxes of chocolates. I don't know how hard it was for you and your late husband Nate to find each other, but however difficult it may have been, out here, finding a life partner is nigh impossible. Go around and ask if you don't believe me."

Spellbound, Gibson listened to Nick - his warm, wise-sounding voice comforting her. It reminded her of when her granddad read her bedtime stories when she was little.

"Here, in this post-war hellhole, when two people find each other, they fall fast and they fall hard," Nick continued. "There's no time to waste, you see? This unforgiving environment doesn't allow room for hesitations, and it certainly doesn't grant second chances. I'm sure you don't wanna hear this..." his tone turned somber, "but people don't last very long. They die young. That's why everybody seems so young to you. The older ones are all gone. Getting past middle-age is the exception, not the rule."

Nick was right, she didn't want to hear that. It was something she knew to be true, but thinking too deeply about it terrified her.

"So, if you think you found someone special, you better make sure you let him know."

Nick turned around, reached for the ration packet sitting next to fire, and handed it to Gibson. He affectionately patted her on the shoulder and told her as he got up, "aside from a lot of thinking, you have to finish getting well. I know the doctor said you're fine now, but don't get out there too soon. Ok, kiddo?"

As Nick's footsteps faded away, she opened up her ration. Steam rose from it, carrying with it the aroma of vegetable stew. She hadn't realized how famished she was until the smell of warm food hit her. Lost in her thoughts, mesmerized by the flickering fire, she devoured the contents of the packet. Scraping the bottom, she remembered the last words she'd read off her journal: _"So, the bastard better be worth it!"_ It had meant one thing at the time, but after a few months of fighting, bleeding and nearly dyeing together, now it took on a whole different meaning.

Giving up on the spoon, she tilted the packet directly into her mouth. Satisfied that she'd gotten every last drop, she rose from her seat and announced, "Hell, I'm doing this! So, the bastard better **be** worth it!"


	2. Chapter 2

It was a glorious day in the Hills - warm, bright, not a cloud in sight. Gibson's old house didn't look old at all - it appeared pristine, just the way she remembered it. There was a tempting smell of bacon in the air and the faint sound of the TV traveled from the front room to the bedroom. It was at that moment she realized she was back at home - her real home. The war, the bombs, the wasteland - it had all been a horrible dream. Elated and unable to contain her joy, she jumped off the bed and almost ran towards the kitchen, following the sounds and smells that called her.

Once in the front room, she found MacCready at the stove. Suddenly irritated by his presence, in a deadpan manner she dryly said, "I thought I sent you to the Red Rocket. It's unusual to see you here now."

He put the pan aside, away from the burner, and turned around to face her. "Yeah." He crossed his arms and glanced around the room. "I guess you're right. It's not like it used to be."

Like frames missing in a film, next thing she knew was that they were standing closer together.

She turned away from him, giving him the cold shoulder while saying, "serves you right for being such an ass."

He reached around and softly brushed her cheek with the back of his fingers just like Nate used to do.

"Right again," he agreed, "but I miss it though..."

She let out a melancholic sigh as she answered him, "I missed you too, you big jerk."

He pulled closer to her and searched for her lips with his own. They kissed with the tenderness and laze of two lovers who'd been together for a long time. The textures, the smell, the feeling were all so familiar. Despite the sense of familiarity, Gibson's own voice echoed in her mind. _'Oh my god! MacCready is kissing me. MacCready is kissing me! Please don't stop.'_

The unstoppable impulse to deepen the kiss flooded her but at that very moment, he pulled away with a playful expression on his face - teasing her, almost challenging her to chase after his lips to satisfy her urge.

Her eyes were fixed on his mouth. She savored the seconds before moving in on her target. But he then unexpectedly stuck his tongue out and licked her lips in one long diagonal stroke.

Feeling a bit stunned, she couldn't decide if his bizarre move was slightly kinky or plain silly. Before she could make up her mind, he repeated it, and again, and again multiple times with a speed her brain couldn't comprehend.

Gasping for air, Gibson opened one eye and was faced with the true source of the licks.

"Dogmeat! Get the hell away from me, you stupid animal!" she yelled at the dog, while wiping her face in disgust.

Dogmeat backed away a couple of paces, sat, and stared at her happily.

"Do you have to do that at **that** precise moment!? Huh?! Jeez!"

She got up and rushed to the bathroom to wash the traces of canine saliva off herself. After a quick rinse, as her face met a towel that had seen better days, flashes of her dream replayed vividly in her mind's eye; his voice, his closeness, his touch...

"Damn you, Dogmeat!" she protested, putting the towel back on the rack. The dog, having followed her to the bathroom, tilted his head at the sound of his name.

"Dogmeat, my ass!" she told the clueless animal. "I'm gonna rename you Cockblocker, you like that? Mind you..." She looked up at the ceiling while trying to figure something out. "...that's how guys call it. If it happens to a woman, what's that called?"

She dressed herself, armor included, and in the meantime she cheerfully continued with her out-loud musings. "Boob-blocker? Cooch-depriver?"

With all her heavy gear in place, she then busied herself searching for various items to put in her backpack, including a new special gun and some stronger armor pieces she'd saved for MacCready.

"Beaver damned? I think I heard that somewhere before. Cliterference?" She laughed at the last one as she threw the backpack over her shoulder.

"Come on, Cockblocker, time to go."

They left the house and headed for the Red Rocket.

After a short 15 minute walk, they arrived at their destination. At first glace, the site appeared deserted. Gibson couldn't spot MacCready anywhere. Dogmeat took off from her side, letting out an excited whimper, and ran towards the back of the building. A few seconds later, the unmistakable voice of the ex-merc could be heard in the distance.

"What's up, boy? Who's a good boy? You ran off from the Hills again, didn't ya? The boss' not gonna like this..." he changed his tone to a baby-talk one, "she's not gonna like it, is she now? Noooo, she's not. But you like this. Oh, yes you do. Oh, yes you do!" He said while stroking vigorously the side of German Shepard's neck.

Gibson turned the corner and smiled at the cute scene in front of her. It took her by surprise to see MacCready's face light up when he noticed her presence. She was fully expecting him to be cranky.

"There you are! Almost thought you forgot about me." He greeted her with jovial friendliness.

At that moment, Gibson fancied that the timbre of his voice was even dreamier in person. Despite feeling a trace of guilt at leaving him all by himself for so many days, she couldn't help herself to reply, "what? Not even a hint of snark? I'm impressed, MacCready! But not accounting for the couple of days I spent unconscious, you're not as easy to forget as you might think."

"Yeah," he sounded concerned. "I heard about that. Word travels and well... this place's not that far from base. How are you feeling? You look all kitted out. Are you sure you're ready to hit the road?"

"Yes, mom! I'm fine!" she mocked him, rolling her eyes in her head. "Ok, so I had the mother of all concussions and enough radiation poisoning to turn me into a ghoul, but I'm not glowing in the dark just yet." She winked at him playfully.

"And what's the matter, MacCready? A couple of weeks off the job and you're losing your nerve already?" she teased him, while placing the heavy backpack on the wooden garden table.

"Ho, ho! Funny! But seriously, what the hell were you thinking going out there by yourself?"

"I wasn't by myself," she retorted, taking a seat on the bench by the table.

"Oh yeah, the robot was there with ya. Same difference! **I** should've been the one there with you." His tone sounded harsher.

"If it wasn't for Nick, I wouldn't be here talking to you now. And you being there... I don't think it would've made much of a difference."

Before MacCready had a chance to protest, she confided, "in fact, if anything, I'm glad you weren't there..." Gibson knew she had more to say, but the words refused to come out.

At times, it'd been hard for her to have one conversation about him in her head, and another, censored version of the same conversation with him simultaneously. This was one of those moments. Temporarily lost in a slight episode of cognitive dissonance, she became aware that her pause was rapidly developing into a long, pregnant one. Her silence was doing all the talking she couldn't, or more precisely, she didn't want to articulate.

MacCready, not known for being one of the slow ones, was about to figure it all out. But just before the revelation made itself clear to him, she rushed herself to add, "because... if you would've been there, then neither of us would be here having this talk!"

"Jesus, Gibson! Still!" he spat out, clearly annoyed. He was now frustrated at two things; the original discussion they were having, and the fact that she'd distracted him just the second he'd felt he was on the verge of discovering something significant.

"We've encountered crews armed with mini-nukes before. We never got as close as to almost get you killed! Christ, Gibson! You can be so f... freaking infuriating at times!"

"Whoa," he exclaimed, hearing his raised tone of voice. Holding out both hands in front of him, he took one small step back, and a deep breath to calm himself down before telling her in a much softer tone, "I'm sorry. And yes, I'm mad as hell, but not at you. Well, yes at you! But only a little. It's just... my own issues, I guess..."

He then joined her at the table, sitting on the bench opposite to hers. "Look, despite the appearances, I'm not an inconsiderate dirtbag. I know you have your own problems and I don't want to burden you with mine. But I have things to deal with. Urgent things. Things I haven't talked with you about yet and then out of the clear blue... you go and leave me stranded here!" It was his turn to feel lost for words.

Gibson's heart sunk a little. Even though there'd never been anything between them, she had the strange feeling that she was about to hear the: 'it's not you, it's me' kind of talk.

Feeling apprehensive, she defensively asked him, "what are you trying to say?"

He took off his hat, placed in on the table, and run his fingers through his light-brown hair in a bid to rearrange his thoughts.

"Helping me out with those guys... you stuck your neck out for me and I don't forget shi... errr. I mean; things like that." He looked up at the sky in slight frustration and added, "oh man. I could really use a cigarette right about now."

She reached for her backpack and rummaged thought its contents. "You're in luck. I packed some of those and a few other essentials," she handed him a full carton as she told him, "but listen, I think you're taking this 'boss - employee' business a bit too seriously. You don't have to stop yourself from swearing on my account. You ought to try it once in a while..." She then took out a whisky bottle and place it on the table, "...it's good for you."

"Oh! Believe me, I know! Back in Little Lamplight... the place where I grew up, just us kids, remember? I was this obnoxious little shi... brat with the filthiest mouth you could ever imagine. Can you believe I was the mayor for while?" He interrupted his little story, "not important!"

Noticing the bottle he added, "Hmm, say... Isn't a bit early for that?"

She'd already opened it and was offering it to him. "Shut up and drink."

He shrugged. "You're the boss!"

He then proceeded to chuck down a quarter of the bottle in a just couple of seconds, making her chuckle and ask playfully, "better?"

His voice sounded strained by the sting of the liquor when he answered, "give it a minute. Smooth! By the way." He returned the bottle to Gibson. She took a swig as he continued, "I know cussing doesn't offend you. It's not about you, it's about a promise I made. I... I had a beautiful wife named Lucy ...and a son, Duncan. I promised **him** to clean up my act..." For a brief second, he looked up at her, clearly immersed in the tender memory, "... and be a better person."

Gibson gave herself some time to think how to respond by attempting to drink the next quarter of the bottle of whisky, or at least that'd been her plan until she started to cough uncontrollably.

"I know!" MacCready cackled. "Nice, isn't it?"

Trying to sound serious in between coughs wasn't an easy feat, but she powered through, regardless. This hadn't been a topic she'd wanted to discuss but she felt obliged to return the gesture.

"If you haven't heard it from the others yet, I had a husband and a son, too."

He offered her a knowing nod, after which she continued, "as I was waking up from cryo, I saw some men... they shot Nate and took Shaun away with them." Replaying the scene in her mind, she took a hand to her brow. "I just couldn't keep my eyes open. I don't know if I fell under again, and for how long... "

She looked away as a lump threatened to form in her throat. The burning sensation left by the whisky caused her to cough again. It surreptitiously helped her to shake off the moment of weakness aiding her to regain her composure rather quickly.

"And that's what I'm doing out here, I'm searching for my son..."

He empathetically interjected, "the love of a mother knows no bounds."

Braving the bottle again, she responded in a not very convinced tone. "Yeah, I guess you can say that."

Slightly puzzled by her comment, he asked her, "what, you don't agree?"

"It's just that... me and Nate, we had Shaun in a..." She lowered her sight and inflated her cheeks. She was searching for the right way to put what she wanted to say.

Not too convinced with her choice of words, she said the only term she could think of at the time, "... **non** -traditional ...way?"

Taken aback he responded with a rhetorical, "excuse me?"

"Oh god, it's a long story." She pinched the bridge of her nose, remembering why she didn't want to talk about the subject.

"Nate grew up without parents. I guess you can relate," she glanced sympathetically in his direction before carrying on with her tale. "His life dream wasn't a career in the military. His dream was to have a family of his own. He wanted to set right the hardships he had to live through. And... and...to tell you the truth - and I **know** it sounds bad - but I was never too thrilled at the prospect," she confessed, perhaps for the first time to another living person.

"But I wanted to give him that dream. However, nature had other ideas... and that's when we discovered I had fertility issues..."

"I'm sorry to hear that. So, you guys adopted Shaun," he said it in a warm, yet upbeat tone, attempting to ease the tension he sensed was coming from her.

"Not exactly. We got an egg donor and the doctors did the rest."

"Oh!" was all he could manage to say initially. "I think I remember reading about that in one of those old pre-war books we had in the cave."

She soon added, "well, not just the doctors, I did my part too. Nine months of sheer hell and a scar to prove it." She did a cutting gesture over her lower abdomen. "But to answer your question, after 'the birth,'" she air quoted, "I couldn't really bond with the baby. I don't really know why, if it was because of the hormones, or because I knew he wasn't really mine, or because the pregnancy was so miserable, but I felt I had to get out of the house. So, I went back to work."

"Nate? He was aaaall mother!" she laughed softly at the memory. "He did everything, and was happy to," she shook her head, smiling, "the truth is that I feel I owe it to him and his memory to find out what happened to Shaun."

As she handed MacCready the bottle, she switched the focus of the conversation back on him by asking, "anyway, you were telling me about your son."

"God, I hate this," he sounded genuinely mortified. "You've already done so much for me, I feel horrible asking for more. And now? After what you just told me, I feel even worse. I mean, I knew about your son and husband, but hearing it from you... it all feels, I don't know. So much more real."

"What is it?" she asked him, slurring her words a little. "Can you just cut the shit already, MacCready, and tell me what's the matter?"

"Duncan is sick," he blurted out. "Out of nowhere, he got this fever and blue boils all over his body, he can't even walk... That's why I left the Capital Wasteland. I'm searching for the cure."

"Can we get him over here?" she urged him. "Maybe we can take him to the doctors of the Brotherhood of Steel..."

"Doctors!" he responded to her suggestion with unveiled cynicism. "I lost count how many times I took him to them. They're clueless **and** useless. Listen, shortly before we met, I bumped into a guy who claimed his buddy caught some kind of a disease. The symptoms he described were exactly the same as Duncan's. Long story short, this guy knew of an experimental serum they hold in this medical facility..."

Gibson knew how capable he was of getting the job done. She asked him the only logical question that could have answered why he hadn't been able to, "what risk level are we talking about here?"

He covered his eyes with his hand as he answered, "it's not gonna be easy. If it was, I would have done it already. It's a two-man job... well... a man and a woman, in our case."

Perhaps it was the alcohol that was making Gibson imagine things, but she could've sworn she saw him blushing. She narrowed her eyes, pondering about what he'd said that had made him flustered. It had all have sounded fairly innocent to her, but it suddenly hit her, _'is he blushing because of the word; woman? Did he just figure that one out? Jeez!'_

Feeling the weight of Gibson's stare and the burn on his cheeks, he diverted his sight away from her as he said, "and I was hoping you'd agree to help."

"Count me in!" she told him, reassuringly, while snatching the bottle out of his hand. "If they have the cure there, we'll find it!"

MacCready looked back at her. "Thanks, you have no idea how much this means to me."

A few sips later, that she soon was about to discover were unnecessary, Gibson laid herself down on the bench. "God, this is stronger than I thought!" she turned her head to look at him, "how are you doing?"

"Well! I'm hearing one, but kinda seeing two of you."

She laughed. "There goes my idea of blowing off steam by shooting up at some raiders."

With a lifted finger, he told her, "not on my watch, you're not. You're still recovering."

"Yeah, like you're in a position to look out for anybody. I suppose it's plan B then..." she forced herself back to a sitting position, "...to Diamond City for some supplies."

"Too far," he protested, "and even the safe route, won't be too safe in our state."

"Noooo problem."

She took a flare out of her pocket, and after activating it with some difficulty, she threw it as far as she could manage.

He followed the flare with his sight as he said, "good job you didn't confuse that one for a frag grenade, like you did once before. Aaand I don't think the Brotherhood will appreciate you using them as your personal chauffeur service."

She shrugged the notion off, "that's why we're gonna have to pretend to be going to some important mission."

MacCready chuckled. "No! The fun part will be pretending we're not drunk as a skunk, at what?" he looked at his watch, straining his sight, trying to get a reading, "half past ten in the morning?"

He giggled a little and added, "no idea. That was a guess. I can't really see the little, what you call them? Hands..."

"Speaking of supplies," Gibson remembered. "I found a couple of things..." she searched in her pack, "and I saved them for you before the guys at home claimed them for themselves, you know how it is. I also have a new recon sniper rifle waiting for you at the Hills. I couldn't bring it with me. Too bulky..."

She took out the combat armor pieces first. "These are the ones you wanted, right? We still have a couple more pieces to go to complete the set but **this**!" she proudly displayed the new gun at him. Unimpressed, MacCready looked at the 10mm pistol with a raised eyebrow.

"This baby fires explosive rounds!"

His eyes widened. "No way!" He then snatched the pistol out of her hands to inspect it more closely.

Feeling rather pleased with his reaction, "I knew you'd like it."

"Oh man!" he was flooded with the enthusiasm of a child with a new toy, "I can't wait to try this one out!" He tested its grip and took aim at hypothetical targets in the distance.

While observing him, she thought, _'And there it is! The kid inside the man.'_ Even in the privacy of her thoughts she felt the need to correct herself, _'well! Inside the_ ** _young_** _man... the very,_ ** _very_** _young man._ ' She rolled her eyes in her head and let out a resigned sigh.

Completely oblivious of Gibson's mental observations, MacCready told her, "Please tell me you didn't spend a pile of caps on this. But do you know how rare these are? Are you sure you don't want it for yourself?"

Feeling suddenly a bit mischievous, he playfully added, "but don't you go on thinking this gets you off the hook for leaving me here for two weeks."

He put the gun down on his lap, turned his head to look at her, and with a smirk he asked her, "are you trying to soften me up?"

"Why?" Gibson's lips formed a smirk of her own, and with a cocked eyebrow she asked him back, "were you ever hardened up?" To land the line squarely at his doorstep, she lowered her sight roughly to on his groin area, looking past the surface of the table before quickly lifting it back up to meet his dark sapphire-blue eyes again.

He just stared at her in a placid and drunkenly amused manner but then the thought hit him, _'wait a second. Is she flirting with me?_ ' Feeling the burn creeping up his cheeks again, he shifted on his seat and stared down at the table thinking, _'bah! I'm sure it's just the battery acid - they pass for whisky - talking.'_

As they heard the Vertibird approaching in the distance, MacCready experienced his own sense of 'battery acid talk.' Feeling devil may care, he tried to bring up the subject of why she'd kicked him to the Red Rocket.

"So! Are you gonna tell me what I did to piss you off?"

Without skipping a beat, her answer came right up. "Nnnope."

He pointed at her with both hands. "A-Haaa! So, I **did** piss you off! At least I got that much from you."

For a split second, she felt like throwing something at the smug little bastard, but she was too happy to see him again to be even slightly mad at his antics. She got up from the bench and picked up her backpack.

"Get your shit together, let's move!"

She looked at Dogmeat. "Coc..." she abruptly stopped herself from saying the dog's new nickname. She remembered that explaining that one would've been even trickier than answering MacCready's last question.

"Dogmeat! Go home, boy."

MacCready was throwing his own backpack over his shoulder as he said, "it's ok. We still have a half bottle. A few more sips of this fine year of battery acid and I'll have you singing better than Magnolia."

The Vertibird landed, blowing dirt and bits of debris all over the place. Gibson thought the loud engines would disguise what she said next.

"Only singing?" she gave him a sideways look with a tsk.

In a puzzled way, he asked her, "what?" But he did hear her, he just wanted to test if she would repeat it.

"Nothing. Let's go," was all he got from her instead.


	3. Chapter 3

The sound of a door shutting woke Gibson up. As she forced herself to come around, a strong headache greeted her, making her task of glancing around her surroundings all the more difficult and disconcerting. She couldn't recognize the room, and for a second that felt like an eternity, she thought she'd been abducted.

Adrenaline kicked in, helping her to engage her brain fully. Her eyes zeroed in on her armor, sitting on a pile on the floor in a corner of the room next to her backpack.

She felt the involuntary impulse to run towards it to get to her gun, but then she said to herself, "wait a second. If I've been kidnapped, they would have taken all my gear away already."

Seeing no signs of her snarky sniper in the vicinity, she wondered, "but where's MacCready?"

Her attention shifted to the fact that she'd been sleeping on a bed. "Jesus, whose bed is this? Oh my god! What did I do? Worse! Who did I do?"

The sound of footsteps drew her attention to the stairs, and she recognized MacCready approaching with a pot of coffee and two white mugs.

"How's the sleepyhead?"

Gibson took a hand to her chest and let out a sigh of relief. "MacCready, thank god! I thought I'd been kidnapped. Where the hell are we?"

He set the pot and mugs on a nearby old bedroom dresser. As he filled the mugs he asked her, "what?" he let out a short bubbly giggle. "You really don't remember?"

With a slightly aghast expression on her face, she simply shook her head at him in response, but the pain caused her to take both of her hands up to her temples as she lamented, "no shaking. N _ooo_ shaking. Shaking: _baaad_."

With a mug in his hand, he took something out of his pocket and offered it to her, "I got these from that chem-head Salomon, it's for the pain and this," he gave her the mug, "is Vadim's hangover special brew."

She looked at it suspiciously. "What's in it?" she sniffed it, trying to identify the content. "And please! Don't tell me it's Vadim's moonshine..."

He laughed again as he picked up his mug and leaned against the wall. "No. It's a very strong coffee with a few drops of liquefied jet." He shrugged as he drank. "At least that's what he told me."

"You still haven't said where we are..."

He looked at her quizzically. "You seriously don't remember?"

Gibson shook her head in response while taking the pain killers chased by the coffee.

MacCready did a rotating gesture with a lifted finger as he said, "you bought this place."

She almost snorted her coffee out of her nose. "I did _**what?!**_ "

He laughed, "yup... Not cheap either, and you weren't listening to my objections, like, at all."

Closing her eyes, she asked, almost scared of the answer, "what else did I do?"

He walked up closer to her and sat at the foot of the bed before saying, "first," he announced, "a few minutes after we boarded the chopper, you collapsed on my lap. The pilot asked me if there was something wrong with you and if we should be taking you to the Prydwen instead..."

Gibson's eyes widened, and he acknowledged her reaction with an amused, "Yeah," before continuing, "so, I lied and told him that you'd had an early morning and were a bit tired."

MacCready's mind traveled back to that moment. The account he'd given her was the redacted version. What he didn't share was how he'd observed her sleeping on his lap. How he'd brushed the hairs off her face. And how, despite his hate of flying, he'd found himself wishing that flight would last forever.

The intimate gesture had not been lost on the chopper's pilot. He'd given MacCready a knowing grin as he strapped himself in. "So! This hot little number belong to you?"

The question made MacCready uncomfortable and more than a little defensive. "No! She's just tired. And would you keep your eyes on flying this thing. I've seen how competent you guys are. You really are on top of stuff... aren't you? Your machines are dropping like bloatflies all over the freaking place! **We** want a lift to Diamond City, not a ticket to the afterlife. Thanks very much!"

Gibson's voice brought MacCready back to the present time. "Oh my god, that sounds embarrassing."

"Embarrassing?" he asked her, for a second fearing he said out-loud some of the parts he'd rather not disclose. He quickly back tracked in his mind the last words he'd said to her. "You think, **that's** embarrassing?! Wait till you hear the rest."

"Oh. Please. Don't. Just tell me: we got here, I bought this place, blacked out on this bed. The end."

He let out a mischievous giggle. "You wish!"

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" she asked, giving him a fake death-stare.

"Of course I am! How often do I have information about _you_ that _you_ don't know!"

"Go on then..." she said resigned.

He picked up the story where he'd left it. "Then! And to my surprise, you managed to come around quickly as soon as we landed. You left a nice puddle of drool on my pants, by the way..."

"Shut up!" she protested. She then narrowed her eyes and looked at him skeptically. Kneeling on the bed, she moved closer to him. "Yeah, yeah, sure. Where?"

He indicated using his finger. "Right here."

She sat on her heels and cocked her head as she noticed how high on his thigh he was pointing, encircling the stain with a finger. Unintentionally, he was giving her the perfect opportunity to ogle at a very interesting area of his anatomy. The thought, _'fantastic view'_ crossed Gibson's mind, along with the temptation to ask, _'there? Are you sure it wasn't just a tidbit higher?'_

But on closer inspection, and after noticing the appalling state of his pants, she opted to ask him the plain truth, "and how am I supposed to tell the difference between the stain **you** claim I caused and all the other hundreds that thing has?"

Satisfied with her assessment, she returned to her spot at the head of the bed before triumphantly stating, "you got **nothing** on me, MacCready!"

He offered her a cocky smirk. "I wish I could say the same and hey! That may or may not be true, but I'm not so sure the guard you were hitting on last night was left with the same impression."

She stared at him with eyes as wide as dinner plates. Happy with the response he got out of her, he added, "but we're getting _waaay_ ahead of ourselves."

She demanded, "tell me now!" He ignored her...

"We cruised the market, which for the most part involved: me, following you around, making sure you didn't fall on your face, and also generally apologizing on your behalf to people you were being rude to or way too friendly with..."

"Oh, you're enjoying this a bit too much, aren't you? I'm so gonna get you for this," she mumbled under her breath.

"No, you won't," without skipping a beat, he continued his narration, "you made the rounds, bought some supplies... how that junk you insist on collecting counts as supplies, I'll never know. We stopped at the noodle bar where you had a very long and incomprehensible conversation with the serving robot. It never seemed to bother you that all it was saying to you was the one and only word it knows over and over and over. With something in your stomach, I thought my troubles were about to be over, but nope! Next stop was the Dugout Inn..."

"You didn't let me in, right?"

"You sneaked behind me when I laid my head on the counter for, I donno, a few seconds? I had to track you down there and by the time I arrived, it was too late. Vadim was already setting you up with his moonshine. And well..."

"Well, what?" she pressed him, noticing a subtle change in his tone.

"I don't think there's a bar in this part of the Wasteland I haven't been to. So, Vadim and I... we know each other, right? When he saw me and he realized I was with you he hooked me up with his hooch too."

Gibson looked at him disapprovingly.

"Oh, come on! Give me a break, will ya! Did you ever try to say **no** to that guy? You know what he's like. And don't you give me that look. Even though I've been drinking since I was six, I haven't touched the stuff since, well... since we met. And in any case, you're the one who started it! You're the one who brought the whiskey to the Red Rocket, or you forgot that too?"

In fairness, she kind of did. She felt some color creeping up her cheeks and with an embarrassed smile forming on her lips, she told him, "you got me by the short ones there."

It was at that point that she experienced a flashback from the previous night. In her mind's eye, they were indeed at the Dugout Inn. She'd been swapping road stories with a charming local named Hawthorne, when a song on the radio had started to play. For some reason, and even though she'd heard the song before, the melody had captured her attention and drawn her focus to the lyrics...

 _You got style and you know how to please_  
 _And a smile that makes me weak in the knees_  
 _If you're a guy who's gentle and tough_  
 _You might be the man, who's man enough_

There had been something in the words that made her remember that one time, when she'd overheard Hancock's comment about what a hell of a gun MacCready was to have at one's back, and then him answering Hancock with a somewhat suggestive: I aim to please. Maybe it'd been the effect of Vadim's killer moonshine, but at that moment it'd all made sense to her.

Not feeling particularly self conscious, she'd interrupted the conversation with Hawthorne and nonchalantly asked MacCready, who'd been sitting next to her on the couch, "you do know this song is about you." It'd been more of a statement than a question.

He'd frowned in response. "What song?" He'd strained his hearing to make out the music and after recognizing it, he'd asked in an amused manner, "this song? What do you mean?"

"Don't play coy with me, Mr. _'I aim to please'_ \- this song is from that woman from that place where I found you... what's it called?"

Sipping his drink, he'd answered her, "The Third Rail."

"Right! And whatsherface...?"

"Magnolia."

"That's the one," she'd pointed at him. "So, you know what I'm talking about! And now I'm wondering," she'd grabbed her chin, narrowing her eyes, "if you two have a history..."

He'd interjected with a blunt and rather stern, "no, we don't."

Unconvinced, Gibson had raised an eyebrow and mischievously asked him, "yeah, and why are you blushing then?"

She'd expected MacCready to wiggle himself out of the sticky spot with the sarcastic humor that always came to his rescue, but instead she'd observed him shifting on his seat and eventually telling her, "because, because... of the way you're looking at me."

Leaning in his direction, she'd rested an elbow on her knee and her chin on her closed fist. With a drunkenly Cheshire cat smile on her face and her eyes barely open, she'd asked him, "and what way is that?"

MacCready had shaken his head, mostly at the state of the picture in front of him, and seemed like he'd been about to answer her when her elbow had slipped, making her lose her balance. He'd caught her just in time to prevent her from hitting her head on the coffee table.

After helping her to straighten herself up, he'd let out a short laugh. "You know what? Never mind."

Present time MacCready's voice yanked Gibson away from her flashback and back to reality...

"Hey! We're talking here! Come back down to Earth, spaceman."

"Sorry, I'm just starting to remember... _bits_ of last night."

"That's a shame," he pouted. "I wanted to be the one to tell you about the part with you skinny dipping in the reservoir."

She gave him a shocked look.

He let out that playful signature giggle of his that always hit her in the right spot. "I'm kidding!" he assured her.

"Thank fuck for that!" she said, relieved. "I still don't recount anything about buying this place though."

"We were at Dugout, you were chatting with that Hawthorne guy..."

Hiding her face behind the coffee mug, she mumbled, "yeah, I remember that part."

MacCready continued, "right? And that woman... the mayor's secretary? She mentioned they had a place for sale in the City and you seemed very enthusiastic at the idea. After we left the Inn, you headed for her office and that's when you bumped into the security guard I mentioned earlier."

She shut her eyes tightly, bracing herself for whatever it was that he was going to say next.

"At first, I was relieved thinking he might act as a distraction and stop you from blowing a small fortune in a house that you don't need, but it took a weird turn. To be fair to you, he started that one by telling you," he mocked the guard's voice, _"well, hello there beautiful!"_

Gibson's heart skipped a beat. _'If only_ _ **he**_ _would tell me that. If only!'_

And that was another redacted version of the previous night events. Now both were experiencing a flashback of the same episode, but each one slightly different from each other's...

MacCready's memory of the event was, that after seeing the guard and Gibson getting a bit too friendly, he'd pulled her gently but firmly away from the guard saying, "come on, boss. You had one too many tonight." Then he'd heard her saying to the guard, "and that's all the action I'll be getting tonight, I'm afraid."

What he didn't know, but Gibson and the guard did, is that as she'd said that, she'd pointed at MacCready behind his back, rolling her eyes at the guard. The guard understood the unspoken message by saying, "Oh! I see." After an amused laugh, he'd added a sympathetic, "tough luck, huh?"

"You're telling **me**!" Gibson had answered him, causing the guard to laugh even harder.

Back in the present, after their brief drifting off, MacCready continued...

"Anyway, you seemed to like what he said, judging by the kiss you planted on his, well... helmet."

She laughed. "So hoping that's not a euphemism for something else!"

"No!" was his semi-horrified response. "Why would I imply something like... and why would you..." He then closed his eyes, feeling his body heat going from normal to furnace temperature.

"And by god woman! You're incorrigible! Even worse than me and that's saying something. Are you sure you're not still drunk?"

She laughed even harder. "You're s _oooo_ easy to get all rattled. It's almost cute."

He looked at her sideways and with a smirk he told her, "aah! If that's how you wanna play it... I'll have to stop worrying so much about having your back and start watching mine, huh?"

"Oh, snap out of it you big prude," she bit back.

"Excuse me?" MacCready protested.

"And besides," she finished her coffee and then added with a sly smile and wink, "I've told you I'll get you. Now we're even."

He couldn't even lie to himself and say that at some level and in a weird way he wasn't enjoying getting his buttons pressed by her. And worse than that, he couldn't dismiss her teasing as simple 'drunk talk' like he had a day or two eralier.

' _What in the world has gotten into her?'_ he wondered to himself, but out loud he said, "remind me not to mess with you when you're sober ...or drunk for that matter!"

Shaking her head, she got off the bed and headed for her armor, which was resting on the floor.

"Aaah, MacCready, if you only knew that _messing_ is all you should be doing..." She collected her armor and returned to the bed. "And hey! That Vadim special brew really does work."

He interjected, "nah, Missy! Don't try to change the subject." As he observed her putting her armor on, he probed her, "what was that all about? What did you mean by that, the 'messing' part?"

She ignored him. "Do you think if I talk to that woman, we can get our money back? We hardly used this place. Hell, I'm a lawyer, there has to be some statute against selling houses to inebriated clients..."

He pointed at her. "There! You're doing it again."

An amused smile involuntarily formed on Gibson's lips. "Oh boy, if you gotta ask..." Snapping the last clamp in place, she added, "you know? Sometimes I do wonder how you managed to have a kid, which brings me to my next question..."

She got up, walked up to him and planted a hand firmly on his shoulder before asking him, "you're ready to find us a cure?"

MacCready blinked at her, perplexed for just a brief moment. "Damn right I am. Let's move!"


	4. Chapter 4

The long walk had made Gibson, tired, sweaty, itchy, sore, and cranky. She dropped her pace and used her untied boot laces as an excuse to catch a breather.

MacCready continued ahead and suddenly said, "there. That's the building. That's Med-Tek, I can see the entrance from here."

Noticing she wasn't by his side anymore, he turned around and approached her saying, "would you hurry it up? We can't be here in the open for too long. We got to keep on moving." He offered her a hand to lift her back up to her feet.

When meeting his face she found a mixture of concern and urgency. She attempted to ease his tension with a supportive, "don't worry. We'll find it."

He got closer to her and shared in a semi-choked voice. "We're so close."

He spun on his heels in the direction of their destination while yanking at her hand to follow him. They must've covered half the distance towards the gates when he stopped with an arm extended into which Gibson collided causing her to freeze on the spot. He let out a quiet, "shhh..."

She took out her rifle as he did the same. Unable to see anything from their position, he made his way to one side, fast but silently to get a better look at the source of whatever it was that alarmed him. Breaking the silence he screamed in disgust. "Ewww. Eeeeehhhh!" In a mocking tone, then shouted, "shut up!" Directed at Gibson now, he added, "ferals! Frag 'em!"

Before she even had time to aim or react, or blink, she saw him throw a grenade at the small group of feral ghouls heading in their direction. A couple of seconds later the blast neutralized the threat, throwing bits of what it used to be people, everywhere.

"For fuck sakes MacCready! How many times do I need to tell you? And do you know how much those cost?"

"Says the woman who blew a whole stash of caps in a house she's never gonna use." He retorted reminding her of her drunken excesses sarcastically. "Look, we can't afford to get bogged down by a bunch of ferals, we're not even inside yet and we don't know exactly what is waiting for us in there."

"More ferals. Lots of them."

He looked up in the sky and rolled his eyes, "yeah, I know. My favorites."

"You've said so... , unless there's more information you kept to yourself."

He shook his head and met her stare. "I told you all I know." He headed towards the building when after only a few steps, he stopped, turned around, and walked back up to her. "You know I'd never keep intel from you. Doing retarded stuff like that can get you killed out here. But my point is..." it was his turn to offer her some reassurance, placing his hands on the side of her arms he said, "...we can't get complacent, the truth is that we don't know what we're gonna find inside."

Satisfied with his clarification, she nodded in agreement. "Cool. I understand." He started to make his way towards the building again when she told him, "hold it there mister!"

He swung around to face her. "What now...?"

"Now that **you** ," she moved closer and poked her finger at his chest, "messed them up real good," she grinned, poking harder, " **you** get to check them for valuables..."

"Gibson, nooooo...," he whined, "do I have to?" He didn't expect an answer as he shuddered at the thought of having to touch dismembered ghouls.

She laughed walking past him towards the facility's doors. "That'll teach you. Meanwhile, I'll deal with the nice, clean, guts-free door, if you don't mind."

She walked to the entrance, mumbling like a grumpy old woman. "Fucking frag grenades. Every. Single. Time. 'Frag 'em!' He shouts. Tosses them around like confetti. 50 caps a pop. Poof! Gone. **And**! Nine out of ten times he never hits the target ...he hits a car, or a tree, or me, or himself..."

At the same moment she managed to unlock the doors the ground shook and a guttural growl followed. A chill ran down her spine as the image of a deathclaw flashed in her mind while all she could think at that moment was, "MacCready," she said out-loud in a whisper filled with horror.

She spun around, and found him several yards away downed on the ground. The sudden appearance of the animal must've startled him, the looming deathclaw was entirely focused on him and closing in. She couldn't risk a grenade, not while the target was in the vicinity of the apple of her eye. She was also painfully aware her grenade tossing skills weren't much better than his. She reached out for her RPG - not a hell of a lot safer than frags but options were a luxury they didn't have right then.

She raced in his direction. "MacCready! Catch."

The RPG landed in his hand, a second later it was on his shoulder, without hesitation he fired at the beast. The shot hit it square on its chest making it tumble screaming of pain. Gibson reached MacCready's side without a moment to spare and pulled him to his feet by his jacket.

"Let's go, let's go. Now! He's not done yet."

Despite the intensity of the moment, he still found room for wisecracks. "Yeah... we just pissed him off. Basically."

They ran towards the building as fast as their legs allowed them to, once inside, Gibson busied herself with the lock panel.

He urged her, "errr... Doors?" The deathclaw was back on its feet and already charging in their direction.

The sound and ground vibrations of its steps were hard to miss. "I know!" she responded in a panicked voice.

"Now... would be good." He insisted.

"I know!" she repeated, louder.

"I'm not kidding..." He informed her as he involuntarily begun to step backwards away from the doors.

"Done," she exclaimed as she joined him.

Bracing herself Gibson instinctively reached for his arm and gripped it firmly, digging her fingers in deep, as if it could shield her from danger. The doors seemed to be taking an eternity to shut, not being able to stand the tension any longer they both closed their eyes tightly expecting the worse.

The doors clanked shut. They opened their eyes and exhaled the breath they've been holding. A second later they heard the loud bang of the beast's head hitting the metal gate. They both jumped in unison as the building's structure shook a little from the impact.

He took a couple of deep breaths to regain his composure then he said, "this is silly, there's no way that thing is getting through that." He looked down on himself and asked her with a playful smile, "can I have my arm back?"

She'd been completely oblivious to the fact she's been gripping his arm like grim death and him mentioning it made her release him as if he was on fire, "I'm sorry, I..."

"Don't sweat it." He reassured her. Then he added with a slightly amused tone of voice, "nothing turns your shorts brown faster than a deathclaw charging at you, huh?"

She turned her face away from him wincing. "MacCready! Please! What we've said about toilet-humor?"

"That is freaking awesome!?" he joked as she gave him an admonishing look. "Hey. You're the one who wanted to run around with a dirty merc. It comes with the territory..." Remembering something then he added, "and... you've said you took down one of these things?"

"Yes," she affirmed. "But I got lucky, and I wasn't alone."

"Still impressive." He paid her a rare compliment.

In the middle of his last word she raised a finger signaling him to be quiet while she strained her hearing. "What fresh hell is this?" he muttered under his breath while listening out for suspicious sounds himself.

From deeper in the building they heard the distinctive moans of feral ghouls. Gibson could hardly believe only a few months earlier, hearing such ominous noises inside such creepy settings would've made her faint of fright, while her current self felt at ease enough to joke, "your friends," she told him with a knowing smirk, pointing her chin in the direction of the grumbles.

Reaching out for his shotgun, he shrugged. "Hey, at least that means the intel was right." He waved his head while saying, "I said 'intel,' it was me. **I** 've been here before, but I couldn't get much further than this hall. There were too many of them and they jumped at you from everywhere. That's why I've told this is a two-man job, minimum."

Getting her trusty Deliverer pistol ready, she began, "here's the plan, handsome..."

"Handsome?" He glanced in her direction with a cocked eyebrow and in a slight tone of disbelief he probed.

She pretended she didn't hear him and continued, "...I'll be abusing the fuck out of my VAT system. I blow their kneecaps, you finish them off."

He let out a short laugh, "heh," before adding, "devious and ruthless. I like it. That way they won't be able to get near us."

He moved ahead, giving her a wide field of view to map and program her shots. At the end of the hallway, they spotted some bodies moving about in the shadows.

MacCready shouted: "There!"

She calmly replied: "On it."

She activated her VATS through which she could isolate each target clearly. The speed at which the ferals lunged at them always shocked her as she targeted their legs. She programmed two bullets per ghoul just for good measure. As the shots flew, one by one, the ferals fell to the ground still alive but unable to advance, then MacCready finished each one off with his shotgun and minimal difficulty. There was a certain air of triumph in his deliberate moves.

Watching him in action was a sight to behold, it always got Gibson's motor running. Witnessing him going hand-to-hand combat was just pure porn and this occasion was no exception.

MacCready spun his head around to speak making Gibson jump, as if she was fearing he could hear her thoughts.

"How optimistic would it be for me to say: that's all of them?"

"Very," she answered him with a casual tone in a bid to mask the rosy color invading her face.

"I have all the codes," he informed her, "to break into their security. We'll just got to find the right terminals."

She got closer to him. "No time like the present, then."

"I cannot begin to tell you how much I hate fighting in close quarters." After a brief pause he added, "so, don't stray too far. Let's stay close."

She inched closer to him and didn't stop until her left arm touched his. "You don't need to tell me twice." A perfectly innocent remark that meant one thing to him and quite another to her. The though put an involuntary smile on Gibson's lips.

Despite the low light, he seemed to catch her grinning. "What's with the face? Don't tell me you're one of those psychos who get a sick kick out of this shiii... eeeh... crap."

She recoiled in disgust. "What!? No!" _'Jeez, I can't catch a break, can I?'_

They spent the next few minutes checking each room and dispatching ghouls as they appeared. To her surprise, the job was a hell of a lot easier than she anticipated, what was becoming a bit of a treasure hunt was finding a terminal that worked.

MacCready spotted a computer, he gently elbowed her as he brought it to her attention by saying, "that desk over there."

She made her way to it and silently read the words on the screen. _'Password only.'_

He was already by her side reading the words himself. "Here," he handed her the codes in a crumpled piece of paper while muttering in a voice filled with worry. "These passwords better work or we're screwed."

She entered the code holding her breath. The terminal unlocked itself granting them access to some of the Med-Tek files and more importantly, to a sealed door that led deeper into the facility.

"Yes!" He exclaimed, relieved, giving her a soft pat on the arm. "See what you can find in there, I'll keep an eye out."

Gibson scanned the files searching for any information that could help them in their search, while doing so, he spoke to her from the office's entrance he was guarding. "One has to wonder what sick experiments they were doing in here."

He thought of sharing his conjectures with her out loud, mostly because when they'd been out in missions, she'd been always telling him: 'MacCready. Talk to me.' It turns out, small-talk soothed her nerves, it filed off the rough edges of stressing situations, and if he had to be honest with her, he felt the same way.

She heard his comment and by sheer coincidence came across a report that caught her attention. Snorting a little she said, "well... it depends. Do you consider it 'sick' to give test-subjects an erection lasting for over four hours? It's a matter of perspective, I suppose..."

"Gibson, quit jerking around." He told her somewhat impatiently while puffing on a cigarette.

She replied in a fake offended tone, "I am most certainly not." Then she added repressing a giggle, "but I bet they were in dire need of some, well... jerking..."

MacCready gave her an unimpressed stare. She insisted, "look, it says it right here," she tapped the screen with her finger, "experiment number 2312."

He released a cloud of blue smoke, shaking his head as he responded her, "fine! I believe you."

With the cigarette dangling from his lips, he cocked his head in a way that made Gibson's heart skip a beat, then he asked in a tone that was half playful, half incredulous, "you're seriously telling me that men in your time had trouble getting it up?"

That was the first time she heard him say something that was even remotely sexual. She inflated her cheeks as a dozen raunchy retorts filled her mind and none of them involved any men from 'her time' nor any floppiness of any kind. But not wanting to leave him hanging for an answer for too long she settled for a simple, "that male dysfunction did affect some of them, yes." And she knew to leave it at that, but her mischief got the best of her when she finished with, "a problem that I'm positive - or a least hoping - you can't possibly relate to."

The remark wasn't lost on him, the thought of putting her on the spot and ask her about it crossed his mind but he knew she'd ignore him once again, or change the subject. _'I guess, two can play that game.'_ "I'm willing to bet Med-Tek engineered diseases like the one Duncan has just so they can peddle the cure for profit."

"Hold it," she said. "Right here, from the same report batch, it says: Experiment 4786, antidote causing cysts in adult test subjects. I'm sure it's somehow connected to what we're looking for. But more on point, I can cancel the security alert lockdown from here. This will give us access to that door we couldn't unlock before."

"Excellent," he acknowledged as he perked up. "Come on, follow my lead. I think I spotted a short-cut back to the main hall."

Gibson chased him to a room with a collapsed flooring, they jumped through the hole and by sticking to his route they soon found themselves at the front main hall in no time. The sealed door was indeed now accessible from its wall-mounted terminal.

With the obstacle blocking their advance out of the way they discovered a whole maze and a small army of ghouls to deal with. In the end, it hadn't been anything they could've not handled but it'd been time consuming and downright disheartening to come at a dead-end in each corridor, unpowered elevator and collapsed staircase blocked with heavy debris to boot.

They needed to get to the facility's sub-level somehow, yet they found themselves climbing a set of stairs. Far from ideal, but they've tried everywhere else.

Reaching the top first, MacCready said a little out of breath, "either that light is blinking, or I'm starting to hallucinate." He rushed ahead. "Cross your fingers."

Before Gibson could get to the top landing, she heard an encouraging 'ding,' followed by his voice echoing off the harsh metal walls.

"The thing works! The goddamned thing works," he said with a mixture of sadness and happiness. She joined him as he added, "if this one goes up, you know we're done for."

She stepped in the elevator and immediately checked the buttons. Her face lit up. "It goes down."

He looked up at the ceiling and exhaled his tension away along with his breath. It was absolutely killing her to see him so troubled. She wondered how he'd managed to conceal his worries from her for so long. Despite the heaviness invading her heart at the very real prospect of failing in their mission, the experience made her feel closer to him, closer to the real MacCready. Immersed in her thoughts she didn't notice when they reached the bottom level until he broke the silence.

"Argh! Smells horrible! The sooner we can find that cure the sooner we can get the heck out of here. Seriously, this is, just... wrong," he said covering his mouth with a sleeve.

"Quite the sensitive nose you got there. Funny, coming from a guy who doesn't seem to have had a bath since, what? Ever?" She joshed, but she actually sort of meant it.

He laughed, "hey! It's my stink. You know how it's like, if it's yours you don't notice it. Now **you** , I can smell even over this..." he made a circular gesture with his hand, "...other more general stenchness."

"Very well." Despite the underhanded insult, she couldn't help but smile at his antics. Nodding with raised eyebrows she returned the favor, "now you know how it feels."

Reloading his shotgun he said shrugging, "it's a tough job - sensitive nose or not - but someone's got to do it."

He kept on teasing her, "you know? I thought about getting one of them gas-masks you see raiders wearing? But getting strapped to one of those gets me all claustrophobic so I just put on a brave face, but if you see me going green..."

He couldn't finish his sentence after being elbowed in the ribs by Gibson. "Oww," he moaned. "And you also have an appalling temper, you should work on that..."

"There," she pointed. "That way looks promising."

They headed into what they hoped wasn't going to be another wild goose chase.


End file.
